Hojo the Bullet Dodger
by Clement Rage
Summary: After AVALANCHE beat Hojo in Midgar, two soldiers come across him, and find that he's more difficult to kill than anyone expected. Oneshot.


_Hi. This's basically a spinoff of my other fic, Survivor, and it's kinda an advertisement for it as well. You don't need to read it to make sense of this. _

_N.B. I don't own eitherFF7 or the film Snatch, from which I took the idea for this._

**Hojo The Bullet Dodger**

Sheltering in someone's porch from the driving rain, the two soldiers glanced up as the white coated figure staggered past, battered and bleeding. Either Rufus had recovered from his injuries, dyed his hair, and decided to go strolling through the city, or professor Hojo wasn't quite as dead as he was thought to be.

In most circumstances, the two soldiers wouldn't have taken much interest, but before he'd commandeered Sister Ray, the man had released all his research specimens into civilian areas of Midgar in order to cause as much chaos as possible, resulting in a record number of deaths, some of whom had been their friends. AVALANCHE had supposedly killed him before he could destroy the city, but here he was. And, by his direction, heading back to the cannon. Soundlessly, the soldiers slipped into his wake.

"Hello, sir."

Hojo turned, his hand emerging from his pocket and throwing something, something which, despite the rain, between them the two soldiers were able to shoot out of the air before it landed. Drawing a bead firmly on the area between the professor's eyes, the first soldier moved closer, to the point close enough that he couldn't possibly miss but not close enough for Hojo to move and disarm him.

"The default position is that you're dead, only my tolerance stands in the way. So don't push me, _sir._"

"Oh my..." Inspecting his target for further tricks, the first soldier noticed that the man's left hand was missing, severed at the wrist and now healed to a blood and slime encrusted nub. A relic of the battle with AVALANCHE, he assumed.

"I've been caught...how irritating."

"Shut up, sir." The title was delivered out of pure habit.

Hojo raised his mutilated arm, and only sharp eyes from the Shinra soldier allowed his gunshot to shatter the Exit Materia before it could be used.

_So that's how you escaped AVALANCHE..._

"Well done. But you aren't safe yet, my boy."

"Move."

"Why, certainly."

Professor Hojo didn't look in the least discomfited by his attacker's astuteness-on the contrary, he looked almost delighted. Odd. He obliging walked in front of him with both hands behind his back, instantly arousing suspicion.

Continuing their normal patrol would involve a four mile detour across hostile territory. Public opinion was not currently in favour of the Shinra. Alone, they could handle it, but it gave a captive too much opportunity for escape. Due to the weather and the signal blocking capabilities of the plate, they couldn't call for a pickup even if all the helicopters hadn't been occupied with the evacuation. So they headed for the nearest elevator they could find.

Unfortunately, they'd overlooked that Midgar was still in lockdown mode. The elevator they'd been planning to go to was in another sector, sealed by an impassible steel gate several feet thick. The first Shinra soldier sighed. On the way back, Hojo would almost certainly escape while his guards were preoccupied with angry civilians/rogue monsters. They didn't have the authority to unseal the gate...unless...

"Hojo, do you still have executive powers?"

"How do you think I got here?" Hojo asked grinning, and slowly reaching into his pocket and withdrawing his ID card. "An unpardonable oversight, really, I mean, look what happened. Still, if it helps me get my just deserts, hmm?" He tried to toss the ID card, but the first soldier stopped him.

"You think I'm stupid? You open it!"

"Haha...of course."

The retina scanner proved that that he'd been right not to open it himself...but the tentacle that emerged from a small door behind him and wrapped around his throat also proved otherwise. Lifted at least thirty feet off the ground by the tentacle, the soldier heard Hojo say distantly "I don't have executive powers any more, I couldn't have opened it, but I _can_ do this! Haha...You may not be stupid, boy, but me? I am a genius!"

"Really." The second soldier, who had been hanging back out of sight since they'd started following Hojo n case of just such a scenario, opened fire, taking the professor in the kneecap. Hojo stumbled, but, to his credit, neither screamed nor fell. A second tentacle lunged for the second soldier, but she (she was a she) was expecting it and shot it off at the base, before returning her attention to Hojo and firing again.

"Put him down."

"Drop the weapon and I will."

"Trust you? I think not."

"Then he dies."

"Fine. You lose your bargaining chip and I shoot you. Whereas I can do this."

A second burst of bullet ripped through him, but they weren't fatal wounds. Blood spattered all over the wall behind him. The other soldier, having lost his machine gun, finally managed to claw free his sidearm and started shooting back at Hojo. The tentacle began jerking him around to spoil his aim, but he hit the professor at least once, and the tentacle wasn't yet constricting enough to kill him.

His blood spattered all over the control panel, Hojo was forced to put down the other soldier and withdraw the tentacle.

"So...are you going to spare me?"

"No" both soldiers replied, taking aim.

"Didn't think so. Well done."

Even as they riddled him with what should have been fatal wounds for anyone else, he threw three cartridges, all of which were destroyed in the storm of bullets before they activated. Then He finally fell, and she advanced cautiously with the the other soldier covering her against a sudden revival

"You think we'll get in trouble for murdering him?"

"Nah. We'll probably get medals."

Hojo grinned, and spat blood. "You're...premature."

_Blam. Blam. Blam._

"...haha..."

_Blam. Blam. Blam._

"...hahahahaha..."

_Blablablablablablablablablam_

"Oh, for Christ's sake. You try."

_Blam. Bl__am. Blam. Blam. Blam. _

"...ha...haha."

"Now this's just ridiculous."

_Blablablablablablablablabla__blablablablablablablablablablamclickclickclick_

"...haa..."

"What is going on!?"

_Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam., Blam. Blam. Blam Blam Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam. Click. Click. Click._

Silence.

"About bloody time!"

Twitch, twitch.

_Blablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablam_

_Blam Blam Blam Blam Blam_

_Blablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablablam_

_Blam. Blam._

_Blablablablamclickclickclickclick_

_Blam._

Twitch.

_Blam.__ Blam. Click._

Stillness.

"How many rounds is that?"

"Over fifty."

"Think that's enough?"

"Well, we can't spare any more if we want to get back to the barracks alive."

Twi...tch.

"What now? He must have more metal in his body than any three Roboguards."

"We could toss him off the plate?"

"Hmm...yeah, that might work."

They each took one arm of the bloody, mangled, mess and threw it off the gap between the sectors, watching to make sure it fell the whole way down to the slums.

Then they walked away, a huge mound of shell casings nearby a testament to Hojo's unbelievable obstinacy.

_Far below..._

Twitch, twitch.

* * *

_I love writing Hojo. All you have to do is laugh and say 'I am a genius!' Please review._


End file.
